US Republicans elected their party’s first-ever African-American leader on Friday, throwing down the gauntlet to rival Democrats after bitter losses in November when President Barack Obama became the first black person to win the White House.
After being voted in as chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), rising political star Michael Steele vowed to revitalize conservatives in a party he and others acknowledge needs a makeover to regain some of its lost political stature.
“We’re going to bring this party to every corner, every boardroom, every neighborhood, every community,” he said after his victory over several other Republican insiders.
“We’re going to say to friend and foe alike we want you to be a part of us, we want you to work with us. And for those of you who wish to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over,” Steele, 50, said after six ballots to choose the new RNC chairman.
On a day of high political drama, the former lieutenant governor of the state of Maryland and candidate for US Senate in 2006 defeated several powerful GOP insiders, including South Carolina party chairman Katon Dawson in the final ballot. Steele won by a vote of 91 to 77, with 85 votes needed to win.
He is tasked with rejuvenating — and diversifying — a party that is overwhelmingly white, and which was left licking its wounds after losing the presidency in November and seeing Democrats solidify their grip on both houses of Congress.
“I look forward to visiting all of you in your neighborhoods, in your backyards as we grow and build the Republican Party of this country,” he said.
Steele’s victory puts minority African-Americans at the pinnacle of the country’s two major parties, capping a remarkable year of ascendancy for blacks in US politics.
Obama’s win is all the more startling given the toxic atmosphere throughout stretches of the presidential campaign last year, when Republicans were accused of not-so-subtly injecting race into the campaign.
But with the drubbing they received in November, Republican leaders have acknowledged that their party suffers from an image problem.
“My concern is unless we do something to adapt, our status as a minority party may become too pronounced for an easy recovery,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said.
In a statement released after the vote, the RNC said Steele was a “self-described Lincoln Republican,” referring to Civil War-era US president Abraham Lincoln whom Obama counts as his own political hero.
Steele’s counterpart Tim Kaine, the Democratic National Committee chairman, congratulated Steele and hoped he could work with him to “put partisanship and the politics of the past aside to get our economy working again.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS